I was wondering if anybody writes "treatments" (Multi-paged, detailed summaries) any more to promote their screenplays, or do these play a part, later on in the production process to save time when communicating the story to other interested parties involved? Years ago, in some cases, I was requested to send treatments of my stories to some companies instead of my scripts. As a treatment is longer than the one or two page "written pitch", I was wondering if treatments are still done.--and when.
Screenwriting : Does anyone do "treatments" anymore?--(When?) by Thomas Ray
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Yes. I'm a film student and everyone in my screenwriting class do treatments for school projects as well as for individual projects. I'm currently working on a treatment and I plan on submitting it for coverage through Happy Writers when it's completed. In fact, I hope Joey don't mind me sharing this, but when I asked Joey could I get coverage on a treatment he said, "You can get coverage on a treatment. No problem! I wish more people did coverage on a treatment before writing a script", end quote. I also have a mentor that wrote for TV for many years and his order of development is beat sheet, treatment, THEN script. I don't do a beat sheet unless I need to share the idea with someone else "quickly", but I always make a treatment before I write a script, so-called right or so-called wrong it works for me.
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Treatments are still done but more as a plotting and outlining tool for the writers doing them, then as a selling tool or as something anyone will ask for. Normally these days the only time someone will ask for a treatment is if they are pitching YOU an idea and want you to write up a few pages on your take on the idea. it can sometimes be worked into a step deal as well. And like Sy said - students are still doing them as a learning tool. But its not really used to sell projects as often as they used to be.
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Treatments are basically part of your step deal on an assignment. When someone hires you to adapt, say, an NYT best selling novel, your first paid step is to turn in a treatment. Then they give you notes on that treatment and go to screenplay. http://www.scriptsecrets.net/screenplays/Deadin.pdf The same happens with any assignment. Your first step is to turn in a treatment, the length of which will be dictated either by your contract or by the producer. I also use treatments sometimes in the way Danny says: as a plotting tool when I am writing a spec. Often my step outline looks great, but when I go to write the screenplay I may find some story issue that wasn't easy to spot in the outline. A treatment helps me find (and fix) those problems before I go to script. I also write treatments sometimes to help me remember story details. Sometimes I come up with an idea and all kinds of little details about it, and I'll write up a 10 to 20 page treatment so that I don't forget the details. They say if the idea is good enough you won't forget it... but I can forget anything, so it's better just to get that stuff on paper somewhere (okay, not paper anymore). But I have never had a producer request a treatment, just completed scripts.